This list of ancient Greek poets covers poets writing in the ancient Greek language, regardless of location or nationality of the poet. For a list of modern-day Greek poets, see List of Greek poets.
Agathon was an Athenian tragic poet whose works have been lost. He is best known for his appearance in Plato's Symposium, which describes the banquet given to celebrate his obtaining a prize for his first tragedy at the Lenaia in 416. He is also a prominent character in Aristophanes' comedy the Thesmophoriazusae.
Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete. There are many fragments of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
The Dionysia was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia. The Dionysia actually consisted of two related festivals, the Rural Dionysia and the City Dionysia, which took place in different parts of the year. They were also an essential part of the Dionysian Mysteries.
Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, set in an idealized archaic past today identified as having some relation to the Mycenaean era. These two epics, along with the Homeric Hymns and the two poems of Hesiod, the Theogony and Works and Days, constituted the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.
Thesmophoriazusae, or Women at the Thesmophoria, is one of eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes. It was first produced in 411 BC, probably at the City Dionysia. The play's focuses include the subversive role of women in a male-dominated society; the vanity of contemporary poets, such as the tragic playwrights Euripides and Agathon; and the shameless, enterprising vulgarity of an ordinary Athenian, as represented in this play by the protagonist, Mnesilochus. The work is also notable for Aristophanes' free adaptation of key structural elements of Old Comedy and for the absence of the anti-populist and anti-war comments that pepper his earlier work. It was produced in the same year as Lysistrata, another play with sexual themes.
Eupolis was an Athenian poet of the Old Comedy, who flourished during the time of the Peloponnesian War.
Cratinus was an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy.
Ion of Chios was a Greek writer, dramatist, lyric poet and philosopher. He was a contemporary of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. Of his many plays and poems only a few titles and fragments have survived. He also wrote some prose works, including a Pythagorean text, the Triagmos, of which a few fragments survive.
Old Comedy is the first period of the ancient Greek comedy, according to the canonical division by the Alexandrian grammarians. The most important Old Comic playwright is Aristophanes – whose works, with their daring political commentary and abundance of sexual innuendo, effectively and by 'de facto' define the genre today. It is important to note that the only extant plays of Old Comedy are credited to Aristophanes. There are only fragments and 'testimonia' of all other Old Comedy playwrights and plays.
The Alexandrian school is a collective designation for certain tendencies in literature, philosophy, medicine, and the sciences that developed in the Hellenistic cultural center of Alexandria, Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
Choerilus of Samos was an epic poet of Samos, who flourished at the end of the 5th century BC.
The Alexandrian Pleiad is the name given to a group of seven Alexandrian poets and tragedians in the 3rd century BC working in the court of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The name derives from the seven stars of the Pleiades star cluster.
Crates was an Athenian Old Comic poet, who was victorious three times at the City Dionysia, first probably in 450 BC. His career had apparently ended by 424 BC, when Aristophanes portrays him in The Knights as a figure from the past. Before he began writing, he was an actor for Cratinus.
Phrynichus may refer to:
Chionides an Athenian comic poet of the 5th century BC, contemporary of Magnes. The Suda says that Chionides flourished eight years before the Greco-Persian Wars, that is, 487 BC. But Augustus Meineke thinks that Chionides flourished no earlier than 460 BC. In confirmation of this date he quotes from Athenaeus, who quoted a fragment of Chionides' Πτωχοί (Beggars), which mentions Gnesippus, a poet contemporary with Cratinus. Aristotle also notes that Chionides "lived long after Epicharmus". But Athenaeus also noted that some critics at the time regarded Chionides' Πτωχοί as spurious. Similarly, some scholars strongly argue against the genuineness of Aristotle's observations.
Hippo was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He is variously described as coming from Rhegium, Metapontum, Samos, and Croton, and it is possible that there was more than one philosopher with this name.
Eighteen Epigrams are attributed to Plato, most of them considered spurious. These are short poems suitable for dedicatory purposes written in the form of elegiac couplets.
Archippus was an Athenian poet of the Old Comedy. His most famous play was the Fishes, in which he satirized the fondness of the Athenian epicures for fish. The Alexandrian critics attributed to him the authorship of four plays previously assigned to Aristophanes. Archippus was ridiculed by his contemporaries for his fondness for playing upon words.
